$9 million in annual salary SAN BERNARDINO – The school district has broken a six-year standoff with its Personnel Commission and soon will begin to hire more than 400 employees if the deal holds up.

Both sides in the long and often bitter dispute, which bled into many other issues facing the San Bernardino City Unified School District, said the resolution may have come Friday when Patrick Maher accepted a position as personnel director.

District officials had resisted offering Maher the job for months, despite personnel commissioners’ promise to stop blocking non-teaching hires – a practice they began in 2006 over another issue that’s still unresolved – if he were hired.

“It just seemed so simple,” said board member Teresa Parra Craig, who said she and board member Elsa Valdez convinced the rest of the school board to make the offer during the closed session part of Tuesday’s meeting. “This is what happens when board members do their own homework and educate themselves on issues.”

The 402 positions will bring in $9million in salary annually, district spokeswoman Linda Bardere said. She said paying for those positions would not be a problem, partly because some of them had been labeled “essential” and filled by substitutes.

“We have a list of about 100 positions, mostly in Nutrition Services, that could potentially be filled within several weeks once Maher has passed (employment screenings) and is able to sign off,” Bardere said.

Gino Barabini, the commission’s chairman, said people should realize that only about 70 of the positions were full-time. But he said he appreciated the decision and planned to start hiring as soon as Maher was in place.

“We’ve always said that’s all it would take,” Barabani said, although he stressed he was only one of three votes on the commission. “This should have happened a long time ago, but it’s great.”

The commission has said the director must sign off on hirings for all non-credentialed positions, such as janitors, bus drivers and secretaries.

Board president Danny Tillman said he agreed with the decision but wasn’t sure Maher would hold up his end of the bargain.

“He may find other reasons not to process those lists (of employees),” Tillman said. “If I thought Maher wouldn’t continue the adversarial relationship, I’d have approved him a long time ago.”

Reference checks conducted when the Personnel Commission first selected Maher as its preferred director indicated Maher would continue fighting the district, Tillman said.

Maher could not be reached for comment.

The current round of struggles began in 2006 because commissioners believe they should be in charge of employment testing – as they say is the case in each of the roughly 100 other districts in California with personnel commissions – but San Bernardino’s district has claimed that power.

That needs to change so fair employment practices are followed, Barabani said, but he won’t let it stop positions from being filled.

Tillman said the district should be in charge of testing because the district is legally liable for hiring decisions.

The president of the local chapter of the California School Employees Association shares Tillman’s doubt that the struggle is over – because he’s afraid the district will change its tune.

“I’m real hopeful, but I’m skeptical at the same time,” said Ken Holt, whose union has an ongoing lawsuit against the district that among other things asks for Maher to be hired. “In the past they’ve acted like they want to solve a problem, then put up roadblocks.”

But Charlie LaChance, labor relations representative for CSEA, said she trusted the school board’s sincerity.

“Whatever the reason for the change of heart… it means we can create jobs, help people spend money again. It will also take the burden off employees who have been trying to pick up the slack.”

And, she said, this might fix bad feelings between the union and the district, many of which she said originated with this issue.

“It was kind of this dominoe effect swirling around them not filling the position,” she said. “I’m very pleased they did.”

Ryan Hagen covers the city of Riverside for the Southern California Newspaper Group. Since he began covering Inland Empire governments in 2010, he's written about a city entering bankruptcy and exiting bankruptcy; politicians being elected, recalled and arrested; crime; a terrorist attack; fires; ICE; fights to end homelessness; fights over the location of speed bumps; and people's best and worst moments. His greatest accomplishment is breaking a coffee addiction. His greatest regret is any moment without coffee.

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